General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A sleeping giant has been awakened [View all]Blanks
(4,835 posts)Hopefully they are weakened. The problem with the republicans is that they are the opposition party. They don't belong in control of congress. They are there to debate the growth of government, so that the government grows at a slow rate. They provide a function, that function does not work when they are in control.
They aren't gone because no other party has emerged. We need to regain control of the house and control both the white house and congress for about ten years and then it will be OK to have another republican president (as long as democrats control congress).
We would be even worse off without an opposition party. We need to push hard in 2014 to get control of the house so that we can get things going back in the right direction, but this is, by no stretch of the imagination, the end of the republican party.